


the twelve days of christmas

by uptownskunk



Category: Marvel, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Attempt at Humor, Christmas, Crack Treated Seriously, Eddie Brock & Dan Lewis Friendship, Established Relationship, Failure To Woo, Gender-Neutral Venom, No Birds Were Harmed In The Making of This Fic, Other, Secret Admirer, Venom Uses Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Wholesome Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 18:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16979850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptownskunk/pseuds/uptownskunk
Summary: In which Eddie suffers through a plague of birds, Dan is extremely concerned that said birds might be a sign of an impending alien bird people invasion, and Venom is just trying to show his love, goddamnit.aka. Symbrock meets the 12 Days of Christmas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many versions of this carol that vary between time periods and locations that it’s nuts but the version I went with in this fic is Frederic Austen’s 1909 version (which may/may not match the lyrics you’re used to, ymmv). I did, however, make two changes to Austen’s version of the carol. In Austen’s version, he has day ten as “ten lords a-leaping” and since I couldn’t figure out how the hell to make that work in this fic, I changed it to “ten drummers drumming”...and then I noticed Austen already had drummers for day twelve so I changed that to “twelve bells ringing”, all of which ended up working nicely – moreso than I think it would had I went with Austen’s version in its total original form. 
> 
> Anyway, I dedicate this fic to Wikipedia whose page on this carol was with me the entire time I was writing. You’re the real MVP.

_**On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

It's a harsh _kieerr ik rick rick_ sound that pulls Eddie from his sleep.

The noise filters in slowly and softly enough at first that Eddie just ignores it, hoping whatever it is will stop on its own and let him fall back into his dreams, but it doesn't stop. The noise only gets progressively louder and more insistent until he's dragged into wakefulness entirely. Eddie lets out a loud groan of annoyance into his pillow and then forces himself to sit up, blinking blearily into his apartment to look for the source of the noise.

Kieerr ik rick rick!

Eddie's eyes are drawn to the closed front door. He squints at it suspiciously. The noise sounds again.

Kieerr ik rick rick!

"You expecting a friend?" he mumbles as pushes the covers off his body, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and wincing when his feet touch the cold floor.

 _What friend?_ Venom's voice rings more loudly in his head. _You're already here._

Eddie snorts fondly, padding over to the door. "Sweet talker."

He doesn't know what he's expecting to see, really, but when he opens the door and sees...a tree in a pot? And an odd almost a pigeon but not quite looking bird tied to it by a long string? Eddie can't do anything but stare.

The bird stares back at him.

And Eddie's no bird expert but he's pretty sure it does not look pleased.

Kieerr ik rick rick!

It also does not sound pleased, either.

 _Eddie?_ Venom's tone is as puzzled and questioning as Eddie feels.

He opens his mouth to respond out loud and shuts it a second later.

Kieerr ik rick rick!

Okay, the bird is _definitely_ not pleased.

"I'm...going to call someone?" Eddie eyes the bird half as though he's expecting an answer from it. The bird starts pecking at his toes, making him take a rapid step back into the apartment with a hiss. "Yeah, I'm going to call someone, I'm...I'm calling Dan."

 _Okay._ Venom says. _Can he bring breakfast?_

Eddie sighs, giving the bird one last suspicious look before going into the apartment to hunt down his phone. "Sure, breakfast."

_Hashbrowns?_

"Yes, Ven, hashbrowns."


	2. Chapter 2

_**On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**two turtle doves** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie wants to chalk the whole morning before up as some kind of weird blip in reality.

He has an alien inside of him. Gods walked among men. There are real life superheroes literally flying around out in the world. In the grand scheme of all the weirdness that was happening in the 21st century, a bird tied to a tree outside of his door isn't the craziest thing that's ever happened.

Dan had taken the bird (and the tree) from him and graciously, albeit confusedly, agreed to find a place for both of them.

(The bird had pecked his hands bloody when he tried to pick the thing up; Dan was slightly less gracious after that which in terms of Dan was still much more polite than anyone else would be, Eddie himself included.)

So, a bird. A tree. Just one of those strange things that happened that you eventually forgot about and Eddie was ready to forget the second Dan had left with them just for the sake of being able to crawl back into bed with Venom wrapped around him and go back to his unfortunately interrupted sleep.

Except that the next day, there's cooing.

Lots of cooing.

Right in both of his ears.

And when Eddie opens his eyes, silently mourning another five minutes of sleep lost, there are four beady eyes belonging to two grey birds boring into him.

Eddie tenses and prays that these birds don't peck.


	3. Chapter 3

_**On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Dan looks at Eddie with such visible concern on his face that Eddie can't help but feel a twinge of guilt for calling him about this.

Again.

For the third day in a row.

As if on cue, one of the three hens he'd found locked in his bathroom that morning rubs against his leg like a cat. A very large, feathery cat that thankfully (so far) _didn't_ peck -- the only thing Eddie can find to be happy about with any of this.

(If he didn't have Venom to heal him much faster than normal human healing would allow, his face would still be marked up from the two birds from _yesterday_ and Eddie can only imagine how concerned Dan would look then -- off the scale, 'please get out of the lobster tank' concerned or 'maybe we need to call Anne and have a group meeting' concerned, neither of which Eddie really wanted to deal with.)

Dan hesitates a bit before speaking. "Are you... _sure_ this isn't an alien thing? Venom can't attract birds or anything, right? Because I'm pretty sure there are at least a dozen bad sci-fi movies about alien bird people and they all ended really, _really_ badly pretty much as soon as entire flocks start to showing up. Like _horror movie_ bad, not just bad sci-fi bad."

Eddie sighs. "Venom?"

Venom pauses their hashbrown eating and gives their full attention to Dan. "No."

They turn away from Dan, go back to eating, totally unconcerned with the situation.

Eddie resists the urge to sigh again. To groan. To _scream_.

He tries to offer Dan a tired smile instead and mostly succeeds. "I am really sorry to keep bothering you like this."

Now it's Dan's turn to sigh. He rubs a hand over his face and gives Eddie a smile back that's much more genuine than Eddie's own. "You're not bothering me, man, I mean---it's weird? But last year was weirder. And scarier. And if I have to choose between that and having to relocate a few birds, this is better. Besides, Anne liked the tree. She's going to try to plant it once winter is over and we might get some pears out of it eventually, so it's not like I'm not getting anything out of this."

And that's Dan, Eddie thinks. Human decency _personified_.

Eddie's never been happier to count him as a friend.


	4. Chapter 4

_**On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

“Eat them.” Eddie’s pretty sure he screams it but his face is muffled enough by the pillow he’s holding tight over his face, half trying to protect it from the four little yellow-bellied birds hopping around over his bed and his belly and half trying to will himself to suffocate, that he really can’t tell.

Not that it matters anyway, Venom can hear him all the same.

_No_ . They tell Eddie in his head. Voice firm. Totally unmoved by Eddie’s distress.

“Please eat them.”

_No_ .

“I’ll finally wear those lacy things in that magazine you liked if you eat them.”

_No._

“I’ll buy you hashbrowns _and_ tater tots every day for a _month_.”

_...No._

Eddie groans like a man dying and wishes viciously it was Venom he was smothering along with himself.

Venom groans back in his head but their voice sounds much more  _annoyed_ than anything.

Eddie feels a slither against his skin, the familiar feeling of Venom emerging from him into physical being. After a few moments he feels the heavy weight of them on the bed, in their full-bodied form, and then feels that weight leave the bed followed by the sound of light footsteps. 

The sound of the window sliding open, more footsteps, and then...excited chirping. 

Eddie pulls the pillow off his face and squints at Venom, watching them slide the window shut again with giant black, claw-tipped hands. He looks around the room. 

“Where are the birds?” 

Venom flicks their tongue out and there’s something...unreadable in their expression, more so than usual. “I threw them out.” 

Eddie blinks at them, incredulously. “You threw them  _out_ ? What if---what if they’re not native to this area? They’ll never make it!”

Venom hisses through clenched teeth. “ Would you like me to go back out and bring them back in?”

More birds, back in his apartment?

Eddie winces at the thought, shuts his eyes tightly, and lets his head fall back to the bed with a thump, resolving that these are four birds he  _won’t_ tell Dan about. “No, that’s---it’s fine. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Privately he hopes they hadn’t just released some kind of endangered species into the wild. He’ll have to research later, look up what the bird looked like, and hope what he found absolved him of any guilt.

Footsteps pad closer to the bed and the mattress sinks again under weight that slowly comes to rest on top of Eddie, straddling his hips. 

Eddie shifts under that warm weight, not out of discomfort or anything like it, but still doesn’t open his eyes.

“You said you’d...wear those things?” Venom’s voice is low as they tap their clawed fingers against Eddie’s chest.

“I said I’d wear them if you ate those birds.” Eddie murmurs. “You didn’t want to take the deal, didn’t even _think_ about it.”

“I didn’t want to get feathers stuck in my throat.” Venom tells him simply and Eddies supposes that’s...fair. Maybe. 

“Still,” Eddie holds back a groan as Venom presses down more firmly on top of him. “ _Still_ , it’s not fair to just give something for nothing, is it?”

Venom digs their claws in to his chest, not enough to hurt but just enough for Eddie to feel the tips of them. “And what do you  _want_ in return, then?”

Eddie’s mouth slides into a slow, easy grin. He opens his eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

_**On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie mourns over the fact that when he wakes up normally, after a night of good and totally  _uninterrupted_ sleep, he’s not relieved not to have birds crawling over him or pecking his face or squawking in his ear but  _suspicious_ .

Four days straight of having the creatures invading your home and your life would do that to you. When the next day comes and there’s not a bird in sight, it’s natural to think that something – somehow – much worse is right around the corner, possibly literally around the corner.

(Eddie tells himself this is natural, at least. He’s hardly going to consult a therapist and ask to be proven otherwise.)

So he gets up as quietly as possible and like a man on a mission, inspects every nook and cranny of his apartment. He checks outside into the hall, he checks the bathroom and the kitchen, he even checks under the bed.

Nothing.

Not so much as a feather in sight. 

The relief finally washes over him in  _waves_ . 

He laughs and rubs tiredly at his face with his hand---stops himself.

Holds his hand in front of his face.

Stares at it.

There’s a gold band on every single finger, including a large one on his thumb and a tiny one on his pinkie. 

Well. 

At least they’re not birds.


	6. Chapter 6

_**On the sixth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie isn’t stupid, is the thing.

Maybe six days is a bit longer to catch on than it should have been, but in Eddie’s defense he’d never seen a partridge in his life – had never knew what one looked like other than ‘a bird’ – and he hardly has the kind of background or has lived the kind of life that would make him know the difference between a regular chicken and a French hen at first sight.

(Eddie texts Dan after staring at the gold rings on his fingers with slowly dawning suspicion, their conversation goes like this---

_Eddie:_ _hey just curious what kind of bird was that the first day I called you?_

_Dan: partridge. why?_

_Eddie: cool and the other days?_

_Dan: turtle dove n french hens. eddie, why?_

_Dan: eddie r there more birds_

_Dan: eddie???_ )

So, no, Eddie isn’t stupid.  A p artridge in a pear tree should be obvious enough but  the next few days worth of birds and rings and today’s little surprise --- six geese laying eggs which are thankfully,  _blessedly_ not real birds but wooden figurines instead, lined up on his dresser to greet him as he goes to get a change of clothes after he showers --- are enough to drive the point home like a nail into even a  _particularly_ thick head what’s going on.

What Eddie can’t figure out is  _why_ .

Or, more importantly,  _who_ .

Because there has to be a who. Birds don’t just tie themselves to trees or deliver themselves right into someone’s bedroom. Rings don’t just slip themselves onto a sleeping man’s fingers. Someone has to be doing it. Someone who has access to his apartment, which should worry him more than it does and probably would if not for Venom (who tells Eddie they haven’t sense anyone inside but who assures him they would know if he was in danger and protect him, which Eddie believes wholeheartedly – which he  _has_ to believe because not believing he’s safe in his own home even with such a strong defense literally living inside of him leads to a road of  _madness_ .)

The problem is, Eddie doesn’t exactly have  a plethora of suspects in his life to narrow his suspicions down on.

The only people he  _really_ has who have this kind of access are Dan, Anne, and Venom, and none of them make sense for this.

Dan is  _definitely_ the type for grand romantic gestures but not the kind that are so imposing and aggravating as unleashing a plague of birds on a man he already thought of as in need of the exact opposite of being imposed on and aggravated would be. 

Anne he could see _maybe_ letting _one_ bird into Eddie’s apartment as a prank once upon a time but their friendship is still in a tentative enough place now, post break-up/post-Venom/post _all of_ that, that he knows that she’d never think of going six full days of doing this kind of stuff in a million years.

And Eddie’s pretty sure Venom has never heard a Christmas song...ever. They could see Eddie’s memories, sure, but for them to not just zero in on a specific holiday song but to actually imitate it is beyond absurd. Just the thought of it makes Eddie laugh out loud. 

The only other people left in Eddie’s life are random coworkers at the new paper he’s working at, people he occasionally makes small talk with in the break room when he’s there and not chasing down a story or typing at his desk but who aren’t  _quite_ friends or even acquaintances yet. He can’t see any of them doing this. He doesn’t know any of them well enough to know if they would or to see what would make them  _want_ to.

Maybe, he thinks a bit desperately, it’s a supervillain. 

Eddie’s no superhero but he’ s no normal guy off the street, either. He has  _Venom_ . It’s not outlandish to think that someone  _knows_ about Venom, to think that they might see that as a reason to target him, to---

To what? To shower him with gifts for twelve days straight? To annoy him to death? What supervillain had a plan as pathetic as  _that_ ?

Eddie has no clue who is doing this. Venom, when he asks, also can’t offer up anything useful. 

All Eddie knows is that there are still six days left of this and he hopes desperately that  _birds_ are not a prominent feature in the rest of them. 

Maybe he’ll go brush up on his Christmas lyrics, just to be sure.


	7. Chapter 7

_**On the seventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie stumbles into his bathroom in the morning to find the tub filled with water, bubbles and seven rubber swans hiding out between puffs of sudsy white foam.

Steam rises from the tub. The water is still hot, it must’ve been recently ran.

Eddie closes his eyes and counts to ten.

He can practically _feel_ Venom perk up in his mind.

_Bubble bath?_

Eddie decides to count to a hundred. “That tub could be filled with poison.”

_It’s not filled with poison._ Venom says it with certainty as clear as they’d say it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter.

Eddie tries to be the voice of reason. “It might be.”

_It’s not._

Eddie says fuck it. 

Maybe it’ll be easier to count to a thousand in the tub.


	8. Chapter 8

_**On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**eight maids a-milking,** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

There’s a girl in a French maid’s costume standing at his door. She pops bubblegum as she takes in the look on Eddie’s face with a raised brow and raises the jug of milk she’s holding up to his face at eye level.

“Dude, you want this or not?”

Eddie blinks at her. “I’m—I’m sorry?”

The maid sighs like Eddie is simultaneously personally offending her and disappointing her deeply and fuck, Eddie thinks, he probably is. “Do. You. Want. Your. Milk? I swear, this is the _worst_ job I’ve ever had! Just put on some slutty little outfits and deliver groceries to creeps, Stacy said, the tips are worth it! She never said anything about having to hike it uphill for half an hour in the dead of winter. _No coats allowed, the customers don’t_ _pay to see you girls all bundled up_ , said creepfuck Manager Bill. Well, _fuck Bill_ _and fuck you,_ _too_.”

Eddie blinks at her again. “I’ll take the milk.”

She smiles winningly at him and hands over the jug. “And my tip?”

Eddie gives her everything in his wallet. He has no idea how much it is but he just...gives it to her.

She counts it out in front of him and gives him a thumbs up, apparently satisfied. “ _Nice_. Next time order more than just milk, I get paid more the more I have to carry.”

“That sounds terrible.” Eddie says honestly.

She groans exaggeratedly. “It totally is but it’s whatever. Gotta make that cash however you can, right? Later dude!”

“Yeah.” Eddie says faintly, watching her skip away. “Later.”

He closes the door with a click and rests his forehead against the wood with a groan, wondering if the French maid grocery delivery business is something that’s worth reporting on because those really sounded like borderline illegal working conditions and that girl looked _barely_ eighteen and feeling dread creeping up his spine because this is day _eight_ and surely that doesn’t mean that there will be eight---

Someone knocks on the door, rapping on the exact spot where Eddie’s head rests, making him feel the knocks reverberating from the other side of the wood.

He already knows what he’s going to see when he opens the door.

He completely, _totally_ already knows but---

Eddie sighs, steps back, and opens the door anyway.

Another maid stands with another jug of milk, a bright smile on her face. “Was that Kira that I just saw leaving? So neat! I’m Stacy, I’ve got your milk right here!”

Oh god.

What the hell was he going to tip her with?


	9. Chapter 9

_**On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**nine ladies dancing,** _

_**eight maids a-milking,** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie does not open the door the next day.

He sits on the floor with his back to it and listens to the knocking without making a sound himself or a single move to get up and answer it.

He ignores the woman’s voice that calls through the wood. “Sir? Uh, ma’am? I don’t know what the gender neutral version of those is, but did you order the strip-o-gram? Hello? Anyone home?”

He ignores the man’s voice twenty minutes after that. “Is this the address for the bachelorette party?”

And he ignores all seven of the other individual knocks on his door that happen throughout the day, all the while wishing he had something stronger in the apartment to drink other than just water and juice but knowing he really couldn’t afford them anyway.

(Eddie had went out the day before, Stacy the maid trailing behind him and telling him enough details about her job that made him all the more certain that he wanted to write an expose on creepfuck Manager Bill and get him shut the hell down, to take money out of the ATM to tip her and the six maids visiting after her with.

Eddie didn’t have room in his budget for liqor, no matter how much he really, _really_ needed it.

And he certainly didn’t have money for _strippers_ right now, either.)

Three more days, he tells himself from his position on the floor.

Three more days and this would be _done._

Venom emerges from his body enough to wrap their tendrils around Eddie, giving him their version of a hug. Eddie appreciates the support.


	10. Chapter 10

_**On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**ten drummers drumming** _

_**nine ladies dancing,** _

_**eight maids a-milking,** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

The scratchy sound of The Little Drummer Boy plays in the early morning hours, a soft and pleasant noise filtering through like the rays of sunlight that are just starting to filter through the window.

It sounds like it’s playing on a record and even though Eddie knows his own record player, an old beat up thing he’d gotten from a friend years ago and never actually used, should be buried in the back of his closet, he’s pretty sure if he bothered to pull his head out of the covers he’d see it set up in the bedroom, record spinning away on it, like it was never in storage at all.

But Eddie doesn’t want to get out of the covers, he’s too comfortable where he is. Comfortable under the sheets, warm from that and having Venom in their full form pressed flush against his back, and shivering not from the cold but from the clawed tips of Venom’s fingers scratching lightly up and down his chest.

It’s nice.

The music makes it nicer, even, like a scene out of a Lifetime Christmas flick if Lifetime was in the business of making aliens their love interests.

The song finishes playing and immediately starts up again. It’s the fourth time. Eddie is willing to bet it’s got six songs left in it before it stops.

“Are you happy?” Venom asks him, claws making little circles on his skin.

Eddie practically _mewls_ at the touch. “’Course m’happy. Wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world.”


	11. Chapter 11

_**On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**eleven pipers piping,** _

_**ten drummers drumming** _

_**nine ladies dancing,** _

_**eight maids a-milking,** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

 

Another day, another record.

Waking up to the sound of _bagpipes_ is a lot less pleasant than waking up to The Little Drummer Boy, the music not bad so much as it’s way too _loud_ for so early in the morning, but Eddie thinks he can live with it considering that a song playing eleven times is still preferable to having eleven birds running amok in his apartment.

He’s less convinced of that by the time the song plays for the third time.

_Much_ less convinced by the sixth.

He only makes halfway through the seventh repeat before he’s tearing the record off the player and snapping it in half with enough violent force that he’s very glad it  _wasn’t_ birds he got today.

For the birds’ sake, not his.


	12. Chapter 12

_**On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love sent to me** _

_**twelve bells ringing,** _

_**eleven pipers piping,** _

_**ten drummers drumming** _

_**nine ladies dancing,** _

_**eight maids a-milking,** _

_**seven swans a-swimming,** _

_**six geese a-laying,** _

_**five golden rings,** _

_**four calling birds,** _

_**three French hens,** _

_**two turtle doves,** _

_**and a partridge in a pear tree!** _

 

Eddie wakes up to the light touch of Venom’s clawed finger gently trailing along the curve of his face. 

He blinks his eyes open, a slow smile spreading across his face as he looks up at his symbiote where they straddle him at the waist. 

A slow smile that falters as soon as his eyes narrow in on the object dangling from one of Venom’s claws – a bracelet.

Not just  _any_ bracelet but one made with  _twelve_ small silver bells going around the same red cord.

Venom shifts slightly, the bells jingle, and Eddie can feel something that feels a lot like rageconfusiondespairwhatthefuck crawling up his throat, wanting to come out in a scream.

“I have a confession.” Venom says, giving the belled bracelet another jingle, this one purposeful this time.

“Please tell me this is not what I think it is.” Eddie begs. 

Venom does  _not_ tell Eddie that. At all.

“I know you did not like the birds---” They begin, but Eddie cuts them off.

“Didn’t like them? Didn’t _like them?_ ” Eddie tries to push himself up, to push Venom _off_ , to no avail whatsoever. He glares up at Venom from where he’s trapped beneath them. “Those things _terrorized_ me!”

“Or the maids or dancers---”

Eddie groans loudly at that.

“But I have followed the parameters of your human mating ritual to the letter and I do not know where I went wrong.” 

And Eddie just stops at that.

Not because of the words themselves – or not  _only_ because of the words – but because of the dejected tone Venom used when saying them.

“What are you talking about?” He asks softly. “What—what human mating ritual?”

Venom tilts their head at him, flicking their tongue out uncertainly. “Your twelve days of Christmas, the mating ritual you perform during the winter to show your true love how much you value them.”

……God fucking damn it, how the hell was Eddie supposed to stay angry at hearing _that?_

He groans and brings a hand up to rub across his face. “That’s not---it’s not a human mating ritual or, well, it’s a song about an  _old_ mating ritual but people don’t...do all of that anymore. Now it’s just a song.”

Venom’s white eyes bore down on him. “So you were  _not_ rejecting me by rejecting my offerings?”

Eddie glares up at him, incredulous. “We share a  _body_ . We had sex  _last night_ . On what planet does that signify a rejection?” 

Venom opens their mouth as if to respond and Eddie holds up a hand to stop them. “No, nevermind, I don’t want to know.” 

He sighs and lets himself smile softly up at Venom. “I didn’t hate  _all_ of it,”

“Yes you did.” Venom says petulantly. 

“ _No_ , I liked the---the bath and the carvings and the other day with the music.”

“Not the pipes.”

Eddie snorts. “No, not the bagpipes. I just didn’t like the live animals or the  _strippers_ .”

He interlaces one of his hands in with one of Venom’s, marveling and enjoying for the thousandth time how  _small_ his hand fits into theirs. “But you don’t need to get me an entire zoo next time you want to show me you love me, just telling me is enough.”

Venom lets out a grumble but squeezes Eddie’s hand in acquiescence. “Humans are strange creatures.”

“Yes.” Eddie agrees with a laugh. “Yes, we are.”

And then Eddie is content to just lay there, Venom on top of him, their hand firmly holding on to his….until he’s struck by a sudden thought that has him furrowing his brow and looking up at Venom in askance. 

“But...how did you pay for all of those things?”

Venom’s whole body tenses  at the question  and  yet they stay completely, stubbornly,  _suspiciously_ silent.

“Venom?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did Venom pay for all that? Press F in respect for Eddie's credit score is all I've got to say.


End file.
